Human Trafficking in the Balkans

In 2000, in response to multiple reports and incidents of human trafficking by U.S. contractors accompanying DoD military in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the DoD Inspector General (IG) launched an investigation. The investigation was driven by reports of contractors involved not just in the purchase of sex in bars and brothels in the area, but by incidents of actual purchase of persons for both labor and sex in contractor employee apartments and living quarters. The DoD IG investigation found that while some prime contractors tried to monitor their employees’ activities and address employee misconduct, anecdotal evidence suggested some level of DoD contractor employee involvement in activities related to human trafficking in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Sex Trafficking in South Korea

In March 2002, near Camp Casey in South Korea, Fox News footage revealed U.S. Army Courtesy Patrol armed and in uniform—in bars and brothels where trafficked women from Russia, the Philippines, and South Korea were forced into prostitution. These brothels were primarily patronized by U.S. Soldiers, and the MPs were reportedly instructed to patrol these locations in case any soldiers got into trouble. An MP was caught on camera admitting that the women's passports were confiscated by traffickers and that the women were then sold at “auctions” to bar owners—a classic case of human trafficking. Congress called for an investigation saying: “If U.S. soldiers are patrolling or frequenting these establishments, the military is in effect helping to line the pockets of human traffickers rather than furthering our country's commitment... ‘to put an end to this abomination against humanity.’”

Forced-Labor Produced Goods in Commissaries and Exchanges

In 2013, a fire in the Rana Plaza garment sector in Bangladesh killed over 1,000 people trapped in unsafe conditions. Investigators found that DoD-branded T-shirts and backpacks were produced in those factories. In 2021, the NDAA highlighted vulnerabilities in DoD resale agencies' supply chains related to forced labor. DoD operated around 240 commissaries and 2,500 exchanges worldwide, providing groceries and retail goods at reduced prices for service members, families, and retirees, generating over $1 billion annually in apparel sales. A recent GAO audit revealed that DoD’s resale organizations have inconsistent policies and processes to prevent the resale of goods made with forced labor, leading to a fragmented approach across these organizations.

Trafficking-related case in Colombia

In 2012, a security team comprised of U.S. Secret Service and U.S. military members was investigated for misconduct occurring during an economic summit attended by President Obama in Cartagena, Colombia. The misconduct included heavy drinking and a trip to a strip club, where the men allegedly paid women for sex in their hotel rooms. After the Colombian police reported the matter to the U.S. Embassy, eight of the Secret Service members resigned or left their positions, one had his security clearance revoked, and three others were charged with misconduct. In DoD, an investigation led to criminal charges and courts-martial, dishonorable discharges, and revocation of security clearances. A Congressional inquiry found that it was a clear security breach that threatened the U.S. President and U.S. officials attending the summit.

Yazidi Sex Slaves in ISIS Territory

In Northern Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) kidnapped and enslaved thousands of women from Yazidi communities. ISIS used sex trafficking as a recruiting tactic, a tool for profit, and a strategic approach to subjugate civilians and destabilize communities. These women were subjected to rape, sexual assault, forced marriages, forced conversions, sexual slavery, and other abuses. ISIS generated significant revenue from bartering and selling women as commodities through ISIS-run courts. ISIS used the victims as recruiting incentives, promising to reward male fighters with sex slaves. The group also used the abduction and subjugation of women as a tactic to destroy Yazidi communities. Many Yazidi women victims returning home faced discrimination or alienation if they returned with children whose fathers were ISIS fighters. This case illustrates the concern that women and girls bear unique and sometimes disproportionate, impacts of armed conflict, including trafficking and slavery.

Labor Trafficking on Military Bases

Over the past two decades, the U.S. military has regularly outsourced its overseas base-support responsibilities in the CENTCOM region to “Other Country Nationals” (OCNs) hired by private contractors to perform tasks like cooking, cleaning, laundry, construction, and security. DoD IG investigations and GAO Reports uncovered harsh working and living conditions, pay as little as $150 per month for 12-hour days, no time off, and restricted communication with the outside world. OCN interviews revealed that workers were forced to pay large and illegal recruitment fees. The OCNs reported that their passports were confiscated, compelling them to remain in jobs where they faced abuse. They described experiencing “bait and switch" tactics, whereby they signed inferior contracts for lower-paying positions in conflict zones after being promised lucrative employment in European or Gulf countries. In several sites, the situations became “insider threats” because mistreated employees threatened the site managers on base in a war zone.

Child Soldiers in Afghanistan

In 2012, armed terrorist groups in Afghanistan recruited 47 children as child soldiers. The terrorist group primarily used the children to manufacture and plant improvised explosive devices and to transport provisions. In addition, at least ten children were used to conduct suicide attacks. A 16-year-old boy killed himself conducting a suicide attack at the entrance to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul. During the attack, seven children were killed, and two others were injured.

Child Pornography Production as Trafficking in Virginia

In 2015, Navy Lieutenant and Top Gun pilot Daniel Chase Harris, stationed at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was sentenced to 600 months in prison for child pornography crimes, including production, possession, receipt, and transportation of child pornography, and obstruction of justice. According to court records, Harris posed online as a teenage boy to convince young teen girls between the ages of 12 and 17 to send him risqué pictures of themselves. He then extorted the girls to send him additional sexually graphic and explicit images by threatening them with posting the images online or sending the images to family or friends. There were nine victims in the case. At sentencing, District Judge Mark S. Davis stated Harris’ actions were “sadistic” and equated to “torture.” After conviction, prosecutors alleged that Harris offered military secrets to Chinese officials to get him out of jail.

Labor Trafficking after Hurricane Katrina

In 2015, a New Orleans jury awarded five Indian men $14 million after they were lured to the United States to work for a ship repair firm, only to be met with inhumane working conditions. The ship repair firm, a DoD subcontractor, recruited nearly 500 Indian men to be guest workers repairing ships damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Each worker paid their employers $10,000 in recruitment fees in exchange for work and a promise of permanent U.S. residency for their families. The suit is one of more than a dozen suits representing 200 plaintiffs. When the men arrived at the U.S. shipyards, they learned that they would not be receiving any of the promised documentation for their families. The men were also charged $1,050 per month to live in secure labor camps where up to 24 men lived in a single room.

Child Soldiers in Africa

During the Sierra Leone Civil War from 1991 - 2002, soldiers in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) swept through towns and cities and forcibly recruited children as child soldiers. Experts estimate that between 100,000 -140,000 child soldiers were forced to fight, steal, loot, kill, burn houses, and commit atrocities as part of the war. Children were also used as cooks, spies, sex slaves. One estimate says 30% of the children were girls. Said one former child soldier who lived through it, "You’d see them in groups, take a girl and go into the room and they come back out, three men, all sweating, and you heard the girl crying and shouting. Sometimes you just hear a gunshot, like bam. The desire was to recruit us all into the fighting forces. Part of their method for getting children to do what they wanted to do was to force us to take drugs. You can never unsee these atrocities." Other African countries that have had child soldiers include the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan.

"My father was an executive who moved every two years as he got new assignments from his company. One of the moves took us to a Detroit suburb, where I was the new girl – a sophomore in a big high school. I didn’t have any friends, so I was excited when “Daniel” offered me a ride home from school one day. He was handsome, cool, and older, and I was thrilled to be noticed. I thought he was amazing, so I trusted him and accepted his invitation. When I got in his brand-new car, he told me he needed to run by his house for a second. When we got to his house, he invited me in, took me upstairs, and gave me a Coke from the mini frig in his bedroom. After a few minutes, he started kissing me and I felt really dizzy. I had been drugged. I had always known when to tell somebody to stop, but when I told him to stop, he just didn’t. He got angry and violent and even though I screamed, there was no one in the house. He raped me. It happened in 15 minutes, and it was devastating. I was Catholic and a virgin. The shame was huge. I didn’t tell anyone, instead, I kept it a secret and tried to pretend nothing happened. A few days later, Daniel cornered me in school and showed me pictures of the rape. Apparently, his cousins were hiding in the closet and took photos. He told me that if I didn’t do what he said he would publish the photos and ruin my family."

"In 2009, in the Dominican Republic, I heard about a recruiter who was [looking for] workers for large U.S. hotels. I thought if I could get a job like that in the U.S. I could really help my family. They told me that the employment required a work visa lasting nine months and said that they could get me the visa and a job to work in a hotel in Kansas City. They said I would have to pay a recruiting fee of $3800 and “travel expenses.” But they said if I didn’t have the money for the extra charges that I could owe it to the recruiting company. I scraped together the money for the recruiting fee from family and friends, thinking I would be able to pay them back because the job was supposed to pay quite a bit. At the airport in the Dominican Republic, when I was given my work visa, I noticed that it was only for three months, which was different from what was promised in the interviews. That worried me, but when I asked about it, the recruiters told me: “No problem, the visa will be extended when the three months ends.” When we got off the plane in Kansas City, some people from the recruiting company were waiting for me. But we were told that there were no hotel jobs in Kansas City, and we would have to travel to Alabama to get another “job.” When we protested, things got ugly. We were told, “Take-it or leave-it” – but none of us could afford to leave it because we had already put in so much money up front."

"At the age of 25, as a newly divorced military spouse, I got into a social scene in Hawaii. I met a man in a nightclub who I thought I liked. We dated for two weeks and during that time, he got to know everything about me: where I lived, where my daughter went to preschool, where my family lived, where I worked. He was very charming and seemed genuine. Although an adult, I was young and quite naïve. At the end of those two weeks, he drove me to what they call a “track” – a strip or street where women and girls “work” as prostitutes. He told me he had many girls and women working for him and said, “The truth is I am a pimp. I own an escort agency and you will now work for me.” I quickly disagreed. I said that wasn’t who I was nor what I wanted to do. He then got out of the vehicle and went over to the corner and violently beat every single female that was out there until they were covered in blood, screaming, and crying for him to stop. He told me that is what he would do to me. He said he would kill me, my daughter, and grandmother if I didn’t do exactly what he said, or if I tried to tell the police. I was deathly afraid of him then, and those two weeks turned into two years of my life. He listed me on several websites including Backpage, Craigslist, and Red Book."

“My name is Lusambu Karim. In 2018 I was recruited to work in Afghanistan by a Ugandan security company for $450/month as a security guard. My job description was to provide security to U.S. Army personnel, civilian contractors, and government properties within the Army base. 21 of us were sent to Afghanistan; I was the leader of our group. The working and living accommodations were horrible. We had no PX; no phones; no computers. We had one laundry machine for the hundreds of OCNs [other country nationals]. There was no medical hospital or clinic. If we got sick, we had to be flown to Bagram Airbase for treatment. We registered complaints with the company about these problems, but they did not respond. Instead, they laid down new torturous rules.

Previously we had been able to guard from inside the towers, but now we were told we had to operate out in the open, where there was no shelter from the elements. In the winter it was cold and rainy, in the summer it was so hot (high 90s in the summer, low 20s in winter). Under duress, we continued to serve even though we were treated badly. Then our contracts ran out and we were required to work for 6 months without a contract. When the Taliban attacked near our camp, I went to the boss and told him that we Ugandans couldn’t continue working without contracts. I asked him what would happen if anyone got injured or died while on duty. There would be no way to file a case for compensation without a valid contract. He dismissed me with no answer.

Weeks later, our site manager told us that our contracts need to be renegotiated. The new contracts had a reassignment from tower guards to cleaning toilets. This was not what we had trained for in Uganda! The new contract had a reduction in pay to only half of what they were making as Tower Guards. There was no medical coverage in the new contract. We were told that if we refused to sign the new contracts, we would be summarily fired and sent home. When we refused to sign these new contracts, the company responded by “red badging” us, which is essentially a form of house arrest. We had no hygiene items, no ability to communicate with loved ones, call home, or even try to call someone who could help us. No one knew where we were, no one could contact us. We simply disappeared. During that time, there was no money coming in, but our debt mounted as we were being charged for food, clothing, beds, sundries. A hygiene kit that would normally cost $5.00 cost $36.00. Everything we needed to survive was charged to an account so any money the company owed us was used up in these fees. And with no money coming in, our debt built up.

At one point the site manager told us that if we didn’t sign new contract, we wouldn’t be allowed to get food from the dining facility. When we still refused to sign the new contract, we were forced to eat from the dumpster at the back of the chow hall. We were only discovered and referred to the DoD CTIP Office because a service member saw some of us eating out of the garbage bins knew something was wrong and reported it.

The Provost Marshall came and made a judgement—no trial, no due process, hearing—he acted as investigator, prosecutor, judge, and jury all on the spot. He decided that we were breaking the law and were to be fined $175.

““I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. My mother was just turning 16 when she had me. I became the cook, cleaner, and caretaker for my younger siblings. Basically, I became the parent for our family—and if I didn’t do something right, I was punished. It was too much for me and I started running away and acting out when I was 12 or 13. During that time, I also was babysitting for a woman who was a friend of my mother’s. I called her “Auntie.” I didn’t know that she was a prostitute who worked at “The Chateau” in Anchorage, Alaska’s brothel district in the Spenard area. She introduced me to my first trafficker, who owned an “escort agency.” I started babysitting for the trafficker when I was 14. But later, she began asking me to help with the business, which included answering the phone in her house, booking “dates” with guys, collecting service fees for her “escort” business, and advertising the business. The business was listed in the phone book and in the Anchorage Press as “Preference Escorts.” When cell phones came out, she got multiple cell phones, and shortly after that she sent me out on my first “outcall.”

I was 15 years old. I didn’t know what I was doing, and they had me drink alcohol and smoke and I was really out of it. So, something went wrong, and I didn’t collect the money like I should have. She used that to force me into other “dates,” convincing me that I owed her big money. By the time I was 16, I was living in her apartment, and she was taking all the money—first her “cut,” then agency fees, booking fees, money for rent and food and all my sundries. And that’s how I got into debt bondage with her and couldn’t get out.

She forced me to do as many as 11 calls in one day. That lasted until she went to jail. Then she sold me to another trafficker—a really vicious pimp.

A large part of my trafficker’s “clientele” was from Fort Richardson. They came in uniform before work, after work, and honestly even during work. My trafficker liked military men because there was this notion that if they are in the military then they can’t be plainclothes police officers. He tracked the payment schedules of military men. We were “hired” for parties on base and off base. Most of the time I was going I would have to be dropped off in front of the base and someone would meet me there and take me into the base pretending that I was his girlfriend or guest. It seemed like sometimes the military police even knew or suspected what was going on but turned a blind eye to it. Some military men would “gift” girls to each other to celebrate rank promotions, returns from deployment, birthdays, and other special occasions. We also went to hotels and private residences. Some of these guys only purchased me once, but some were “regulars” that came back again and again. I would say that I myself was sold hundreds of times to military men.

Most of the violence I experienced was from the traffickers, but I did have some very scary experiences with some of the military men who were customers. One time, in a hotel a guy who was obviously suffering from PTSD got frightened and dangled me out of a window of the Hilton Hotel, threatening to drop me. A customer from the military tried to blackmail me with naked pictures of me once.

Recently, I moved from Alaska to Ohio where I am working to help others who have been trafficked and to prevent minors from being lured into human trafficking. Anywhere there is a military base there are going to be traffickers and pimps selling women and children. We need to get the word out to military men and especially to their commanders not to turn a blind eye to commercial sexual exploitation. Most of the time, like in my case, when a military man purchases sex, he is putting money in the pocket of and enriching a violent exploiter. That’s why I’m telling my story—so we can stop sex trafficking of women and girls and end the cycles of violence.”